From where I stand…

Tag Archives: age

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

I came across yet another near-expired tulip. This one’s petals reminded me of a dancer ,with arms outstretched to the sky, spinning and dancing in the sun. It would appear a final flourish is in order.

“Your face is marked with lines of life, put there by love and laughter, suffering and tears. It’s beautiful.” ― Lynsay Sands

I’m having a strange fascination with flowers past their prime. The colours and textures seem to intensify, albeit briefly, as they dry out, just prior to falling from the stem. Some, seem to hang on for quite a while, while others fall off at the slightest touch.

The tulip above has captured my attention for the past several days, as it sat on our kitchen table, slowly changing form. The grooves in the petals became more pronounced, as the petals dehydrated. The flower’s ‘face’ opened up more and more, to the point where it was almost flat. I looked at it today and the petals are pulled right back, just hanging on.

“One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.” ― James Joyce

This was a spur of the moment photo of three tulips from my garden, which graced my table last week. I watched as they cycled between open , during the day, and closed, by night. Each day the open cycle became more pronounced and after a while, the hardly closed at all.

Yesterday, I noticed that they opened wider than they had in the past and were looking a bit past their prime. I came up with the title for the image before I made it, seeing the blossoms as part their ‘best before’ date.

It was fun shooting the grouping from various angles and lighting setups and just as I snapped the last frame, the yellow tulip dropped two of its petals. That made me smile, having literally captured the very last moments of the show, which was best before.

The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.” ― Kahlil Gibran

I really struggled to find a quote that complimented this photo. It’s such a contrast. These tulips have been the subject of my photos for a few days now, and I watched them mature and slowly fade, yet, to me, the beauty remained. In fact, the beauty now is even more intense, since it’s so unexpected.

And that, has me thinking more deeply about my perception of beauty. I’ve always been able to find beauty in mundane places. It seems a bit of an odd trait nowadays, in our busy and stress filled world, so I consider it a gift. In a world filled with such intense ugliness, to be able to see some vestige of beauty is a real blessing. I don’t mean that I don’t see the ugliness and live in a dream world, it’s simply that I can effortlessly perceive those small glints of wonder and loveliness that so many can’t or won’t see. I can’t turn that off, not that I would want to.

The ability see these images and capture them is one of the reasons I started blogging in the first place, to share some of those moments, hoping it brings joy to someone else, perhaps someone struggling to find some light of hope in this world. If an image does that for a single soul in this world, then I have accomplished what I set out to do.

The image above was processed in a style I have not used before, yet I felt compelled to try it, and it seems to work, given the subject. I was not looking for bold, I was looking for serene, by using a soft background to let the flowers’ colours radiate gently from the white background.

Yet, with all things of beauty, they seem all to brief and changeable, and I am faced with the fact, that even this stage for the tulips must pass to the next, so I savour it, while I can, understanding a bit more about myself and my perceptions.

The words to the Beatles, “Here Comes the Sun” echoes through my mind as I consider this image made on the trails yesterday. “It’s been a long cold northern winter”. Indeed, it feels that way.

In reality, this past winter was relatively mild, delayed till late November in its arrival, with a few large bouts of snow, but a lot of cold, windy days. More windy days than I can recall in recent years. The snow, came in large amounts, some melting off, but enough remaining in the forests to compress the leaves on the ground into a dense, solid mat. Something I have not seen for a few years.

The other effect, and I had not noticed this before, though I was not particularly looking for it, was that the beech leaves, which offered splashes of bright orange, well into autumn and early winter, really showed the ravages of the winter. Much of the colour was gone, leaving dull and parched leaves, with ragged edges. In fact, when I first saw them, they looked like ghostly remnants of their former selves. They even look like the skeletons of fish, with their bone-like veins.

The firm, robust, almost leathery, leaves of autumn had become desiccated and diaphanous, Yet diaphanous alludes to some softness, which these were not. The leaves hung to the branches like the brittle wraiths of autumn. Yet, when you look closely, new buds are present, waiting for a few day to coax them back to life, and the cycle continues. Life from death, or rather, a long sleep.